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What Bugs Me Wednesday: Deus ex machina

-"Swing away, Merrill! Deus ex machina's got you covered!"

This may be somewhat related to last week’s complaint, but you know what really bugs me? Deus ex machina.

That’s right, the plot device of last resort (it should be, anyway-) when a character paints themselves into a corner, or finds themselves in a hopeless situation, and some outside force or event swoops in to save their bacon. It’s maddening. You don’t often find it in so-called “high literature,” but it rears its ugly head every now and again. Take Cormack McCarthy’s The Road,  for example.

I loved that book. I loved how McCarthy pulled off ‘post-apocolyptic’ while remaining completely apolitical. That, in itself, is pretty refreshing. But given the bleak existence of his father and son duo in that book, their amazingly good luck in a couple of tight spots laps right up against the borders of Deus ex machina.

Literally starving to death in a scorched landscape where all food sources have been picked clean by raiders, they happen upon an untouched underground cache filled with everything you could imagine. Awfully convenient. Later on, and in similarly dire straits they discover a pristine cistern of crystal clear water under a layer of rain gutter scum. Finally, with his father dead for two days, the boy ventures back out to the road and meets, not another marauding gang or cannibalistic maniac, but one of the last remaining ‘good guys’ who promises to protect him. McCarthy pulls it off because he’s that good, but it still strikes me as a little too convenient when it’s all said and done.

I’ve mentioned Guiraldes’ Don Segundo Sombra  before. In that classic of Argentine literature, the main character works his way up as a gaucho, earning his stripes, not to mention a nice little nest egg that he then blows on an ill-advised cock-fight bet. Gone is his hope for the future, gone is his dream of owning “a string of ponies all of one color” ….  Until he inherits his own ranch out of nowhere, that is. Deus ex machina strikes again. And yeah, it kind of bugs me.

From Silver Screen to Printed Page

Often, when the subject of film adaptations comes up, we hear the familiar refrain “Yeah, but the book was better.” But what do we say when the reverse is true- when a book began life as a movie or a screenplay? Here are three such books that are well worth your time.

The Human Comedy, by William Saroyan:

Hired by MGM to write the screenplay for this project, Saroyan was eventually removed after refusing to compromise on the length. While Louis B. Mayer pushed forward on the film version, Saroyan raced to publish his longer version first, as a novel. It’s a short, breezy read… for a book, if not for a screenplay.

Dances With Wolves, by Michael Blake:

Kevin Costner fell in love with this spec-script sometime in the mid-eighties, but Blake had a hard time selling it to anyone. Costner encouraged him to turn it into a novel, with the hopes that it would improve his chances at a sale. Released as a paperback in 1988, Costner finally bought the rights himself. The rest is history. The film won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture in 1990.

No Country For Old Men, by Cormack McCarthy:

Originally penned as a screenplay, McCarthy had little luck in selling this story to Hollywood. As an accomplished novelist, he didn’t need Kevin Costner to tell him to turn it into a novel, which he did in 2005. Enter the Coen brothers, who faithfully adapted the book back into a screenplay in 2007. Four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, were the result.

It’s an interesting subject. I know Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy started life as a radio play. (The Infinite Improbablility Drive was Adams’s ingenious way of extending a story he thought was already over.) Certainly in the cases of Dances With Wolves and No Country For Old Men, I think it’s probably safe to say that “the movie was better than the book.” Anyone know of any others?

All the Pretty Businesses

With three kids 6 and under, Mrs. DeMarest and I don’t get out much. As a result, I have little to no use for review sites such as Yelp.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the humor in imagining how Cormack McCarthy might grade various local businesses. Courtesy of Yelping with Cormack, here’s one such review for Design Within Reach, in Pacific Heights - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

They emerged from the crucible of adolescence rosyfaced and long of bone, inheritors of the hurtling world of their progenitors. Cocksure but for the onerous legacy of war and rapacious greed and around them the soaring monuments and dolmens of their race fissured irreversibly. And like spawning salmon in their scaled finery they coursed heedless to universities and to the walled cities of Europe and the jungled ruins of Asia and they did so listlessly and yet with some driving hunger undeniable. For before them lay the promise and the yoke of some vague everything. And despondent they turned to those glowing gadgets and the vast and false electric nation and they soured like stable ponies for in everything they found nothing. And drowning now their horizons sinking and obliterated they lashed out. Fingers clawing that Eames chair. Eyes blazing and lustful before that Sussex credenza. Fornicating with that Brix modular drawer set.

Here’s another for Red Lobster in Wichita, KS

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two stars.

The manager sat tied to the chair in the corral, firelit on all sides by the torches of the townfolk. Dean stood next to him with a Colt army revolver pointed to the hardpacked earth. Who else will speak, he said.

A chorus of voices rose at once. From the din a miner hollered: The shrimp was rubberlike.

I believe Pastor Macabee already done spoke to that, said Dean. He looked around him. Ghastly amber faces staring back like funeral masks. Are there any other charges, he said.

A prostitute in dusty finery stepped forward. She spoke haltingly. I made a reservation for six persons. And we still had to wait 45 minutes to set down. Her face fell into her hands and she began weeping softly. We was on time, she said.

A drunk cowboy carrying a rusting hatchet lurched toward the manager. I’ll tickle his neck with my axe so help me, he said.

Dean leveled the big revolver at the cowboy. The man regarded him wetly and melted back into the crowd. Dean spoke loudly so that all could hear. We will do this orderly or by God I’ll send him to the capitol and to hell with the lot of you.

A little girl strode forward into the light and looked up at Dean and the manager with eyes shining and obsidian. Hang them, she said. Hang them both.

Check out more at Yelping with Cormack.

An ear for authentic dialogue

Writing good dialogue is tough. Getting the dialogue of children to ring true adds an even higher degree of difficulty. A lot of decent writers just don’t have the ear to pull it off. Their young characters are either petulant, whining brats or super-genius wunderkinds that talk just like the adults. It’s rare that someone truly nails the child’s voice in an authentic, powerful way. Cormack McCarthy does exactly that in his post-apocalyptic novel The Road.

The following passage highlights one such interaction between the two main characters, a man and his young son. Earlier in the day they had broken into a locked cellar in search of food, and were horrified to discover a pitiful collection of fellow human beings who were being held captive as a source of food. Now, after having been chased away by that pathetic assembly, the two of them are settling down for the night:



Can we have a fire? The boy said.

We don’t have a lighter.

The boy looked away.

I’m sorry. I dropped it. I didn’t want to tell you.

That’s okay.

I’ll find us some flint. I’ve been looking. And we’ve still got the little bottle of gasoline.

Okay.

Are you very cold?

I’m okay.

The boy lay with his head in the man’s lap. After a while he said: They’re going to kill those people, arent they?

Yes.

Why do they have to do that?

I don’t know.

Are they going to eat them?

I don’t know.

They’re going to eat them, aren’t they?

Yes.

And that’s why we couldn’t help them.

Yes.

Okay.

 ...

They sat by the side of the road and ate the last of the apples.

What is it? The man said.

Nothing.

We’ll find something to eat. We always do.

The boy didn’t answer. The man watched him.

That’s not it, is it?

It’s okay.

Tell me.

The boy looked away down the road.

I want you to tell me. It’s okay.

He shook his head.

Look at me, the man said.

He turned and looked. He looked like he’d been crying.

Just tell me.

We wouldn’t ever eat anybody, would we?

No. Of course not.

Even if we were starving?

We’re starving now.

You said we werent.

I said we werent dying. I didn’t say we werent starving.

But we wouldnt.

No. We wouldnt.

No matter what.

No. No matter what.

Because we’re the good guys.

Yes.

And we’re carrying the fire.

And we’re carrying the fire. Yes.

Okay.

If you ask me, this is an absolutely amazing passage. Some will look down their nose at McCarthy’s stubborn avoidance of quotation marks. Others will fault him for his apostrophe-less contractions. But neither of those eccentricities is material in my view. The biggest charge that will be leveled against this passage is that it flaunts the modern adage that every single word of dialogue has to move the story forward. Dogmatic, by-the-book critics will argue that McCarthy’s action gets stalled in the repetitive back and forth between father and child. But that’s precisely why it works. The plot may not be barreling forward, but the emotional story is growing more and more complex.

Here’s what makes this so good: The dialogue of both characters is incredibly telling in what is not said. The boy’s sparse words and long pauses put his cognitive processes on full view for the reader. We can see the wheels turning inside his head. And anyone with little kids will see the authenticity in this kind of multi-layered communication. The father’s simple explanations and one-word answers reveal his own compassion for the boy, and his empathy for someone trying to figure out why the world is the way it is.

The boy puts up a stoic front, as most kids would in his situation, but he can’t hide his fears from a caring, probing father. Meanwhile, the father stonewalls some of his son’s direct questions. He is set on protecting his child from the hellish realities of life on the road, yet quickly perceives when it’s time to level with the boy. They were going to eat those people. That knowledge not only explains why they had to abandon them, but it reinforces the reasons that father and son have to stick together. It illustrates exactly what they’re up against.

Finally, the familiar refrain of “carrying the fire” leaves us with the impression that this is only one of many such discussions they’ve had since the world went to hell. It is their private rallying cry. It’s their only real reason for moving forward. It’s the only reason for refusing to give up, as their wife and mother had done.

I think the whole thing is just brilliant. Buy the book.

What do you think? Who else really hits the mark when writing children?

First Line Friday!

I’ve felt stymied this week, bogged down, stuck in a rut. So, I’m putting a negative spin on this week’s “First Line Friday.” I want to showcase what, in my mind, is arguably one of the weakest, most ineffective first lines that I have ever read (for a critically acclaimed novel, at that!).

“See the boy.”

In case you missed it, that’s the first line: “See the boy.” That’s it. And guess who wrote it?

Cormac McCarthy in Blood Meridian, one of the richest, most insanely beautiful novels ever written. And yet, the first line is extremely lacking. It’s too plain, too Biblical, too meaningless. “See the boy.” Ok, I’ll see him. What’s the big deal? There is no implementation of any language that is intriguing in the least.

But I suppose that that's how life is sometimes . . . simply lacking.

In Colum McCann’s solid novel Let the Great World Spin, he states “good days, they come around the oddest corners.” Well, it’s the same with first lines. I fully expected Blood Meridian to have a drop-dead amazing first line. But it couldn’t be further from the truth.

But to be fair, the rest of Blood Meridian more than makes up for a blasé first line.